


of hope, blossoming like a flower

by velvetnoire



Category: Food Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 18:51:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16708075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velvetnoire/pseuds/velvetnoire
Summary: If forgiveness had a sound, it must have been resonant as the two of you, with a synchronicity that sounded like hearts beating as one.





	of hope, blossoming like a flower

Having lost your voice, there is little left for you to say. A thousand words could well up in you, hovering over you like a tidal wave, but they would - _could_ never crash upon the silent shore. Perhaps a pretty picture you long to paint in an aria unrivalled could appear in your mind’s eye, but you’d lack the means to even begin.

You could scream all you wanted, at least, which was almost cathartic, for a time. If you screamed with none to hear, would you ever make a sound? Not that you could in the first place, but - still.

Reminiscence is but a bitter path to traipse down, a sting to old wounds that have yet to heal. You cannot help but wonder if they ever will.

The company is sparse (read: nonexistent) aside from scattered stars and an inconstant moon, fuller than you think you might ever feel. Without your voice to fill the air with shining song, you are left deprived of your emotions’ crescendo, notes rich and resonant.

Bereft of the quiet tenderness’ pianissimo, you can only mouth the lyrics you had learned to love, back then. Like seeking a phantom limb, you can only reach for a shadow of what once had been beautiful. Complete. Whole. The list goes on and on.

It is fortunate, at least, that the water has not frozen around you; your breath fogs in the air, condensing before your eyes. The trees around the lake are barren, colorful leaves having long fallen and rotted on the ground, now laden with brilliant snow.

It almost looks like powdered sugar - but you know it is foolish to even imagine such a thing. Instead savoring sweetness, you’d only be greeted by biting cold. In any other season, it’d be refreshing.

As it is, you’re bored out of your mind - swimming laps through the wintry water to keep your blood flowing. It is lucky that you are accustomed to the cold - the chill that laps at your exposed skin is only a fraction of what a human would feel.

So when you hear the song of someone else nearby, well - you cannot help but fall a little in love, at the sound, and the one who sings it. The song of her heart beats a steady tune - unfalteringly, unfailingly soothing through the nights you cannot sleep, haunted by distorted memories that you don’t dare call dreams.

In the nights that follow, your sleep is far sweeter than it has been in quite a long time. For a while, you can almost feel at peace.

-

You finally gather the courage to meet the mysterious singer - figuratively speaking, as her song you can hear from her heart; her flute playing is one of the most beautiful things you’ve ever heard. Its vibrato coaxes something you haven’t felt in a long time - from emptiness, it has brought the sensation of yearning, as if this person had been searching for quite some time. For who or what - you cannot help but wonder.

Curiosity stirs in you, and you make the decision - the time has come. You will seek answers from the source of your myriad questions, swirling like the gentle breeze. It spreads ripples on the water’s surface, the effect fading as soon as it arrives.

-

Spring has come. Peach blossoms float on the lake’s clear waters, embracing you with a gentle fragrance. The snow has long melted, allowing for flowers to flourish in the wake of winter.

Her name is Cloud Tea, you find, and you cannot find a name more fitting for your fellow food soul. She is empyreal as Mount Lu, the clouds of her namesake wreathing her in an aura all the more ethereal. You could wax on and on about her beauty, a distraction that keeps some of your melancholy thoughts away - if only for a little longer.

Cloud’s kindness is a balm unto your wounded soul, something that threatens on tears pricking at your eyes and a lump in your throat. All these years with no company but your own have taken their toll on you, forsaken by one who you’d almost come to love.

Now, there is only a sense of betrayal that stings, a bitterness that you’d rather shove to the back of your mind - not the best nor healthiest way to cope, but - you don’t want to think about it. Not when the bliss you’re feeling at the moment feels so fragile, you don’t want it to break.

You take a sip of the tea she brews for you, too caught up in your thoughts to register the flavor. This is a mistake.

“Please take care - the tea is hot,” Cloud Tea warns you, gentleness in her voice as always, consideration ever-present in her tone. It’s one of the things that only makes you fall for her more, but it is too late.

You sputter, feeling foolish as you probably look as the tea scalds your tongue with a flavor intended to be soothing. You do not feel soothed. You feel like you want to swim a thousand miles away and hide underneath a rock, never to be seen again.

But then you could never see Cloud Tea on the shore, serene as the waters when they are the calmest - like glass. But unlike glass, you cannot see through Cloud Tea and her intentions, why she would help you - a stranger. You cannot see why she would play for you, day by day, serving you tea (that from then on, was no longer served anywhere near scalding) and simply standing by the shore.

As much as you’d love to hide away forever, you know it’s an incident she wouldn’t look down on you for. Not now, and not ever - her accepting nature is something that always fills you with a sense of hope.

Oh, how frightening it is, to trust another. You don’t want all the light in your life to be crushed mercilessly under an unrelenting heel, for the one you had trusted so dearly to turn on you and forsake you, voiceless and alone. You were left mourning for someone who was not dead. He might as well have been.

Sometimes - and the thought of it makes guilt pool in your gut for even considering such a dreadful thing - you almost wish it to be so. Ah, what a painful feeling...it’s best not to dwell upon it.

You and Cloud Tea do not converse often - not in words. Not when you cannot speak but only write, inflection absent in words you can only depict on paper - thoughts tidy and all in a row, so unlike the battle of emotion and expression you struggle to wrest into some semblance of order. She plays, and you listen - and it is conversation enough.

-

It does not take long for your voice to return - tremulous yet wonderfully strange, almost foreign but so incredibly liberating. Something that had weighed on your chest for so long had been finally set free - like butterflies fluttering in your stomach, embracing the nectar of sweet flowers once more: wrongs righted, as things are meant to be.

Long had you waited in the depths of darkness without any light of hope to guide your way. Eventually, you’d even resigned yourself to your fate. But Cloud Tea shone a light that brought you back from the obsidian shore, even when the shadows threatened to consume you whole. Her sweetness, her song - paved a path for you you’d never imagined you could follow.

Of course, you had been afraid. You’d resisted it, at first - that light, you’d turned your back on it and allowed the wounds of your heart to fester. It is only natural, to resist change.

But in doing so - you felt you had done Cloud Tea’s efforts a grievous wrong. All this time, day by day - that tea was for you. She had always made sure the melodic timbre of her flute was by the shore of the lake, close enough so that you could her.

Wonton had reminded you - that you were not human, and neither was Cloud Tea. That you did not have to sing with the fear of harming her paralyzing you, with the shadow of regret hanging above. And it was enough to make you remember Cloud’s words.

She had told you - only you had the power to heal yourself; she had done all she could. And you realized that there was only one thing left for you to do - to sing with all your heart, speaking through song: _I am sorry. Will you forgive me? Will you come home?_

Tears streamed down your cheeks, when you called out with your song and she answered, mellifluous tones entwining with yours.

If forgiveness had a sound, it must have been resonant as the two of you, with a synchronicity that sounded like hearts beating as one.

**-**

**-**

You have been searching for quite a long time for this song, traveling through hill and vale; it is sole reason for your journey. Having ascended summits and peered into manifold lakes, you have found naught but your own reflection distorted through the onslaught of endless rain.

You’d asked humans, offering the song of your flute in hopes of another for any sort of clue to guide your path, to align your uncertain compass. Legend has it that its enchantment is nothing more than a siren’s allure: bringing all who listen to an unfortunate end.

But you know that is no more truth than you are human - which is to say, fictitious as rumors scattered on the wind.

Humans fear what they cannot understand, crafting rationalizations as a buffer against the realization - that they do not know everything. How can they know the heart of a siren they have never seen? Have they proof for their allegations of harm, that they are more than hearsay?

You cannot help but muse: truly, the only misfortune such a song would bring about would be missing out on its dulcet tones.

Perhaps you care too much, chasing this song as your Master Attendant’s dying wish as well as yours. How many days has it been since the time you had shared together? It is in the past, that era of happiness tinted bittersweet by its end - no longer can you travel back to the days you shared, hours spent side by side.

That was then, and this is now. So you cast your thoughts out of the past, and look to the future.

-

Perhaps it is fate that brings you together, or divine providence, smiling upon you at last. Wonton thinks much of the same; after all, the two of you are not so different.

The nights are long as the two of you rest not, instead worrying for the life of another - tending to their wounds or gathering the leaves for yet another medicinal brew. Yet your labor bears fruit - seeing such a smile is a far greater reward than you could have ever imagined.

But you are not doing this to gain anything. You care not for gratitude, although it would be received with warmth - you care for her. How long had she endured the cruelty of humans, the loss of her voice a physical reminder of what she had lost?

This pavilion was made for forgetting sorrows; it was built in the midst of the fragrance of peach blossoms to heal wounds not only of the flesh, but the soul. Perhaps the latter are not so easily mended, but you cannot help but undertake such an endeavor. No matter how impossible it may seem - you have to at least try.

If nothing else - you can hope to be a shepherd for the hapless flock, standing sentinel against the howl of the fortunate wolf encountering prey. Even so - you know full well that Sweet and Sour Fish is no damsel in distress, far more capable than any defenseless lamb.

She is her own knight - she can save herself, you tell her, hoping your words reach her heart, and they do, breaking down the fortress she has built around herself and allowing you in. Trust is a weighty thing - more precious than pearls, you find, and you intend to keep it.

As of now, she is a sword reforging herself, being built anew - like that pottery method you’d heard once along your travels, fissures filled with shining lacquer.

Spring has come, and with it a fragile hope that dares to bloom - fluttering like so many petals in the wind.

**-**

**-**

Seasons come and go, but one thing remains the same.

Your wish has come true, and you can only hope that it lasts longer than the brevity of spring - for perhaps forever.

In your hands you cradle a cup of tea, brewed once more by Cloud Tea. It brings back memories to your first encounter - how you’d been too caught up in your musings and reminiscence of her kindness to taste it, instead scalding your tongue.

Your face had flushed red, and you’d sunk beneath the surface of the lake for a few moments in hopes of cooling it. You’d even considered hiding away beneath a rock, never to be seen again in your embarrassment - but the thought of Cloud Tea made you sigh. You could never spend such a miserable existence for so long without her.

“This time, I hope you can actually savor it.” Cloud Tea laughs, a sound like chiming bells bright and beautiful - and is that a hint of teasing in her voice?

You flush, hiding your smile in the rim of your cup. You’ve spent so many winters with your only company the stillness of the falling snow. It’s almost overwhelming, this warmth.

The petals fall, and you feel at peace. For the sojourn of spring, although brief, leaves the trace of its existence upon the world: in a sense, perhaps its flowers shall never fade.

 

 


End file.
